I've heard that this Gustavia macarenensis "must be eaten at the correct stage of ripeness. If you eat it on Tuesday it is under-ripe, hard and tasteless. If you eat it on Thursday it is overripe with a foul odor and taste. On Wednesday it is a great fruit, rich and oily.", from Jim West.
Oddly I quite disagree with Jim west.. we have considered it to have a long shelf life of 1-2 weeks after being picked and being available to eat out of hand underripe or overripe. It’s possible Jim has himself a bit spoiled with the fruits quality as I find myself after having had some hundreds of a specific fruit..
Usually I prefer them overripe a bit more smelly and soft, locals seem to prefer them underripe and a bit hard fleshed.
Heard that is one of the better tasting of the gustavias.
Hoping to come across a reliably thick fleshed one someday. I suspect they take well by air layers because I’ve seen cut branches trying to root into wet grass before..
Do you eat it out of hand, cook it?
Out of hand, which involves careless abandonment of scrap or a bit of scraping at the inside of the skin which has a sandpaper like edge, trying to free the remaining flesh for ingestion. Underripe there can be a strongly bitter taste from the protective seeds/flesh protective skin... it is pretty enjoyable for us. 4-6 can be a small meal. High quality fatty fruit after I’d say coming in like after durian, avocado, ackee, but before many palm fruits like aguaje etc.